CDDRL Number 114 WORKING PAPERS June 2009 Youth Movements in Post- Communist Societies: A Model of Nonviolent Resistance Olena Nikolayenko Stanford University Center on Democracy, Development, and The Rule of Law Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Additional working papers appear on CDDRL’s website: http://cddrl.stanford.edu. Center on Democracy, Development, and The Rule of Law Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Stanford University Encina Hall Stanford, CA 94305 Phone: 650-724-7197 Fax: 650-724-2996 http://cddrl.stanford.edu/ About the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) CDDRL was founded by a generous grant from the Bill and Flora Hewlett Foundation in October in 2002 as part of the Stanford Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. The Center supports analytic studies, policy relevant research, training and outreach activities to assist developing countries in the design and implementation of policies to foster growth, democracy, and the rule of law. About the Author Olena Nikolayenko (Ph.D. Toronto) is a Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar and a recipient of the 2007-2009 post-doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her research interests include comparative democratization, public opinion, social movements, youth, and corruption. In her dissertation, she analyzed political support among the first post-Soviet generation grown up without any direct experience with communism in Russia and Ukraine. Her current research examines why some youth movements are more successful than others in applying methods of nonviolent resistance to mobilize the population in non-democracies. She has recently conducted fieldwork in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Serbia, and Ukraine. Her articles have appeared in Canadian Journal of Political Science, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Comparative Politics, Europe- Asia Studies, PS: Political Science and Politics, and Youth and Society. Abstract Over the past decade, the rise of youth movements applying nonviolent methods of resistance against autocratic incumbents occurred in the post-Soviet region. This protest cycle was set in motion by the spectacular mobilization of Serbia’s social movement Otpor against Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Similarly, Ukraine’s Pora in 2004 and, to a lesser extent, Georgia’s Kmara in 2003 mobilized large numbers of young people to demand political change in the aftermath of fraudulent elections. In contrast, Belarus’ Zubr in 2001/2006 and an assortment of Azerbaijan’s youth groups in 2005 were less effective in staging nonviolent struggle against autocratic incumbents. This paper provides an explanation for divergent social movement outcomes in non-democracies by investigating the dynamics of tactical interaction between challenger organizations and the ruling elite. The paper argues that both civic activists and autocratic incumbents engaged in processes of political learning. Hence, tactical innovation was vital to the success of youth movements, especially late risers in the protest cycle. Over the past decade, a wave of youth mobilization against repressive political regimes has swept the post-communist region. Thousands of young people took to the street to demand political change at a critical juncture in domestic politics, the election period. In 2000, Serbia’s social movement Otpor (Resistance) played a vital role in bringing down Slobodan Milosevic. Inspired by Otpor, Georgia’s Kmara (Enough) in 2003 and Ukraine’s Pora (It’s Time) in 2004 mobilized youth to press for the turnover of power. Similarly, Belarus’ Zubr (Bison) in 2001/2006 and Azerbaijan’s Magam (It’s Time), Yeni Fikir (New Thinking) and Yokh (No) in 2005 have attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to mobilize large numbers of young people and propel a democratic breakthrough. This spectacular outburst of youth activism, spanning several years and stretching across countries, affords an excellent opportunity to unravel the dynamics of nonviolent resistance during a protest cycle. This paper seeks to account for divergent movement outcomes by examining processes of tactical interaction between challenger organizations and incumbent governments. This empirical inquiry applies the dynamic approach to the study of social movements, positing that both movement participants and their opponents engage in political learning (Beckwith 2000; McAdam 1983; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001). The paper argues that tactical innovation was vital to the success of youth movements, especially late risers in the protest cycle. By tactical innovation, I mean experimentation with the choice of frames, protest strategies and interaction styles with allies. The study seeks to contribute to academic literature in two ways. First, this empirical inquiry seeks to advance our understanding of nonviolent resistance by providing a detailed analysis of tactical interaction in non-democracies. To date, most 2 empirical work has traced processes of tactical interaction in mature democracies (McAdam 1983; Karapin 2007; McCammon 2003; Minkoff 1999). It is plausible to assume that tactical innovation is of greater importance to challenger organizations in the repressive political regimes, since the stakes of political struggle – regime change or the survival of the autocratic incumbent – have wide-ranging implications for the ruling elite and the society at large. Second, this study aims to expand the existing body of literature on social movements by focusing on cases of unsuccessful mobilization. There is a bias in social movement literature to focus on cases of success. Within the post-communist literature, most empirical work was geared to identify determinants of electoral revolutions in Georgia, Serbia, and Ukraine (Aslund and McFaul 2006; Binnendijk and Marovic 2006; Bunce and Wolchik 2006a; Devdariani 2004; McFaul 2005; Tunnard 2003; Wheatley 2005). Much less attention has been accorded to abortive attempts of civic activists to bring about political change (Marples 2006; Silitski 2006; Valiyev 2006). Social scientists and civic activists, however, can draw valuable insights from the analysis of movement defeats. Definitions Youth Movements. Youth movements are here broadly defined as “organized and conscious attempts on the part of young people to initiate or resist change in the social order” (Braungart and Braungart 1990: 157). The modifier “youth” refers to the demographic composition of the movement, rather than a range of issues advocated by protesters. The average age of Otpor members, for example, was 21.1 Empirical evidence 1 National Public Radio. 2002. “Fresh Air from WHYY: Interview with Srdja Popovic.” March 20. 3 further suggests that students formed the core of activists in the youth movements. This is consistent with the argument that the tipping point for participation in protest activity tends to be lower for students than other social groups (Jarvikoski, 1993: 82; Karklins and Petersen 1993). Young people tend to have less access to positions of political power and fewer commitments associated with the fulfillment of adult roles. At the same time, students play an important symbolic role in modern societies. Youth are small in numbers in the former Soviet republics, these are “old nations.” But students are perceived as the future of the nation. If they turn to the street, it signals to the rest of people that something is wrong. They don’t stand only for themselves, but also for their families.2 Social Movement Outcomes. This study treats the level of youth mobilization during the election year as the dependent variable. While thousands of ordinary citizens joined post- election protests, youth movements carried out nonviolent resistance to the repressive regime for months prior to the election. Moreover, in the aftermath of fraudulent elections, young people were among the first to protest against electoral fraud and among the last to leave protest sites. It must be stressed that this study does not seek to account for outcomes of electoral revolutions in the post-Soviet region. The application of the term “revolution” itself is contested in the analysis of recent post-election protests (Silitski 2009). Newspaper reports suggest that there has been an insignificant turnover of the political 2 Author’s interview with X.N. 4 elite in the aftermath of the “revolutionary” elections.3 Furthermore, numerous analysts cast doubt over democratic credentials of the newly elected presidents.4 Still, it is indisputable that an extraordinary large number of post-communist youth became politically active during the election year. Explaining Social Movement Outcomes: Structure or Agency? One of the most prominent debates in social movement literature deals with the relative importance of structure and agency in accounting for movement outcomes. A principal argument of political process theory is that changes in the political opportunity structure affect the movement outcome (for a review, see Meyer 2004). Political opportunity structure refers to “consistent—but not necessarily formal or permanent—dimensions of the political struggle that encourage people to engage in contentious politics” (Tarrow 1998: 19-20). Another line of inquiry emphasizes the role of ideational factors in explaining social movement outcomes. Within this line of inquiry, scholars examine the impact of diffusion on movement strategies (for a review, see Strang and Soule 1998). Over the past few years, students of electoral revolutions